I won't tell you that it's gonna be okay.

I won't tell you that it's going to be okay.

And welcome to another episode of the Bakarai Selles podcast.

Today we have one of my good friends on the show.

And we're going to actually skip the universal introduction that we have and ask those questions

because he's been on the show before he's what we call a friend of the show but I do want to provide

listeners with some context for the work you do. So,

Lydriguez Murray, talk about the work you do at the United Negro College Fund.

And then, I mean, your elevator speech, what is the UNCAF? We always hear about it, but what is it?

Yeah, UNCAF, United York College Fund, is the organization that helps to work on behalf of and protect

private historically black colleges and universities or HPCUs. The organization does something that most membership

organizations doesn't do. It actually gives money to the members and instead of taking money

from the members. In addition to that, the

UNCF is the second largest private provider of scholarships in the country

period. It's the largest private provider of scholarships, minorities in the country, period.

And so that means that this organization is providing $100 million in scholarships,

not loans, scholarships to 10,000 students at 1,100 different colleges and universities.

So that's students at every HBCU you know and at a whole bunch of other institutions, black and brown students that look like you and me that are

first generation college students and underserved students.

So when people ask this question is the UNCF, because we ask this question of the NAACP all the time is it still necessary?

If you would have asked me in the year 2000, I would have said heck yeah because I got

the UNCF scholarship when I was a freshman at Morehouse the year before you came and that scholarship made everything possible.

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